Pages

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Designing a new learning environment (#DNLE) Assignment #1

The following is an assignment submitted as part of the requirements of the DESIGNING A NEW LEARNING ENVIRONMENT MOOC course from Stanford University.

As the assignments typically include analyses of real or hypothetical educational settings, here's my disclaimer (oh yeah, I've always wanted to write this!): My views are my own and not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

The target I have in mind is teachers of
English as a Foreign Language based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Although there
has been an increasing interest in technology integration in education in the
last years, this has been especially relevant in the private sector. Last year,
as part of a government initiative, all kids and teachers from public schools
were given a netbook to be used both at school and at home in the preparation
of assignments and homework. Although most kids are totally familiar with
technology and know how to use their computers as a tool for writing
assignments, searching materials and interacting at a social level (most of
them are active users of social media such as Facebook and Twitter), teachers
find it relatively hard to include technology in appropriate and meaningful
ways. I believe that choosing a relevant and efficient Learning Management Systems
(LMS) might be a first step towards opportunities for successful implementation
of blended learning programmes.

AIM

In this assignment I will evaluate three different
LMS platforms potentially useful for teachers seeking to introduce technology
into their classrooms. I decided that they should follow two criteria: they had
to be cloud-hosted (no downloads required) and they had to offer a free plan. I
finally chose Edmodo, Schoology and EDU20.

The
first and most obvious advantage of Emodo is that its interface resembles
that of Facebook, a platform with which most students (and many teachers) are
familiar with, so relatively little time is invested in explaining how the
platform works and what its features are.

You
get direct access to your Google Docs through the Library and share them with
your students or colleagues within the platform.

It
is connected to other education-oriented platforms or webpages, such as Aviary and SchoolTube, so you can access these apps and use them within
the platform.

(-)

The
fact that Edmodo is so similar to Facebook might potentially present a
disadvantage, since students may behave similarly in both platforms, not
understanding that Edmodo is to be used for educational purposes. The
appropriate etiquette must be taught, going through the necessary adjustments
in register and content.

You
have to rely on your students to give their parents the entrance code.

Something
I don’t feel comfortable with in Edmodo as a native speaker of Spanish is
that if you sign up as an instructor you are automatically referred to as
Mr. or Mrs. García. In Spanish we have two distinct ways of referring to
someone -vos and usted- which assume very different
levels of formality and relationships between speakers. My students and I
have a pretty close relationship and we use vos (this is probably the case in most classes nowadays). Some
users might consider this limitation culturally inappropriate.

I find
Schoology’s interface very intuitive and user-friendly. The different
features and sections are easily identifiable at a glance and so are the
materials and assignments for each group created.

The
platform has an in-built Help Guide, which can be consulted any time while
you’re navigating (it opens up in a new window). Additional help is found
in the Resources section, where users upload video tutorials on how to go
about many of the sections and features offered.

It
works as a truly complete LMS, where you can keep record of attendance,
keep your gradebooks (which can be imported form Excel and other formats)
and create quizzes and tests within the platform.

(-)

The
interface is in English only and there’re no translations available. It is
ok for teachers of English as a Foreign Language but it wouldn’t work for
other subjects.

Teacher
moderation of students’ comments is not available.

You
can’t open more than one account in any given computer (certainly a
disadvantage if you work in a lab where students share computers).

Edu
2.0 seems to aim at collaboration and it fosters it through online video
conferencing (via Skype) and the
inclusion of forums and wikis (within the platform). Also, your personal
library may be networked with other schools in communities or districts.

You
can customize your URL.

There
is a Certificates and Badges section, so if you are into gamification, the
platform makes it easy to include it in your classes.

(-)

Although
the platform offers a free plan, this is only for accredited institutions.
Plans for individual teachers start at $49 a month for up to 20 students.

Little
help is offered as you navigate.

Limited
customization of interface layout and templates.

While working for this assignment I bumped into some other Learning Management Systems worth investigating. Want to give them a try?